


Grounded

by LiraelClayr007



Series: My 2018 - 31 Days of Ficmas! [9]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Light Angst, Post-Episode: s02e09 The Satan Pit, the Doctor is distressed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 13:20:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16933992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiraelClayr007/pseuds/LiraelClayr007
Summary: The Doctor is feeling at his ends after the events of The Satan Pit. After a few misguided attempts, he finds peace.





	Grounded

_When despair grows in me_

_and I wake in the night at the least sound_

_in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,_

_I go and lie down where the wood drake_

_rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds._

_I come into the peace of the wild things_

_who do not tax their lives with forethought_

_of grief. I come into the presence of still water._

_And I feel above me the day-blind stars_

_waiting for their light. For a time_

_I rest in the world, and am free._

_-_ The Peace of Wild Things

_by Wendell Berry_

 

 

Rose wakes when the TARDIS stops.

They’ve been in the vortex for a few days; the Doctor vaguely mentions a few repairs, but Rose knows better. He wanders from one task to another. He reads, he tinkers, he _cleans_ \--honestly, Rose sees him washing dishes for the first time _ever_ \--but nothing holds his attention for long. He tries to watch a movie with her, but he only sits for twenty three minutes--Rose checks the elapsed time because she can’t believe how antsy he is--before jumping off the sofa, pacing a few whirlwind circles around the room and then, with a muttered “sorry” dashing out of the room. She just shakes her head and turns the movie back on. The Doctor has his moments, just like anyone…

But his agitation has thrown her off a bit. She sleeps, but lightly, and when the TARDIS is on solid ground again Rose notices. So she wakes.

There’s no sign of the Doctor. Wherever they’ve landed, he must have gone outside without her. Odd. Usually he waits for her.

Usually he wakes her up.

She chews on her lip, thinking. On the viewer it looks safe enough, no kind of emergency signals or flashing lights that shout _danger_. Making up her mind, she says, “Alright then--” either to the empty air or to the TARDIS or to herself--and marches resolutely out the door.

He’s only twenty paces or so from the doorway, lying on his back, eyes closed, in a sun-dappled patch of shade under a giant of a tree. There’s a pond nearby, so still it looks like the sky is repeated below, ringed with cattails and water lilies. It’s the kind of quiet that isn’t--insects humming, small animals rustling, wind breathing in the tall grass. There’s something about the air that Rose can’t quite place, it smells sweet and fresh and it somehow makes her body feel cleaner. More alive.

She’s only halfway to him when he says, eyes still closed, “Do you know where we are?”

Rose looks more closely at her surroundings, and she realizes all at once that she _does_ know. “This is Earth! I don’t know where or when, exactly, but it’s Earth! That’s an oak tree shading us, and my brain called those cattails and water lilies without questioning, but that’s really what they are!” She takes another deep breath, tasting the air again. “I’ll bet it’s early, though. That’s what I’m gettin’, this air is _clean_. No pollution yet.”

“Twelfth century North America. Pre-colonization. There are some people around, of course, but not as many as there will be in the future. Much harder to find them. And we’re in a pretty empty place at the moment. I checked.”

Rose settles next to him, blinking at the green and gold of the leaves and twinkling bits of sun above her. After a moment she, too, closes her eyes.

“I thought I’d lost you, Rose.”

Her breath catches in her throat.

“Me down in that pit, you on the rocket...I thought I’d lost you.”

When she’s almost sure she can answer without crying she says, “Never, Doctor. I promised you forever, remember?” Her voice only quavers a bit at the end.

He finds her hand, and they thread their fingers together.

“I come into the peace of the wild things,” the Doctor says.

“Hmm?”

“It’s something from an old Earth poem. Or a future Earth poem, I always get that confused. It just means that I come to places like this--real, solid, where I can listen to frogs and feel sun on my face and smell the rain coming over the mountains--when I need to feel like I’m connected to the universe.”

“I come into the peace of the wild things,” Rose repeats, taking another deep breath of the sweet, clean air. “I like it. We should come here more often. Only not too often. Don’t want to damage anything.”

Rose yawns. The grass beneath them is soft, and she’d only been in bed for an hour before being awakened by their stop, so it’s no surprise that she snuggles up to the Doctor and falls asleep. The surprise comes eight hours later, when both of them blink awake to a sky so full of stars Rose almost believes she could reach out and touch them.

  


**Author's Note:**

> 31 Days of Ficmas || day 9 - peace
> 
> Why is everything I write so sad lately??? Maybe tomorrow will be brighter??


End file.
